Most expensive cities in America

[KimberlySayWhat]

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas...WV4cHNlbnNpdmU-

1. New York

2. L.A.

3. Miami

4. Honolulu

5. San Francisco

6. Chicago

7. White Plains, N.Y.

8. Houston

9. Boston

10. Washington D.C.

[Fringe]

While this Texas town remains on our list of the best cities for business and careers year after year, the cost of commuting--20.9% of expenses, on average, are spent on transportation--makes it pricey to live here. And the city lacks a useful, extensive or reliable mass-transit system.

Gotta agree. You either live in an overpriced home inside the city with high crime rates and pay high taxes for poor city services OR you live out in the burbs and deal with traffic and high gas prices.

[RedScare]

Gotta agree. You either live in an overpriced home inside the city with high crime rates and pay high taxes for poor city services OR you live out in the burbs and deal with traffic and high gas prices.

[Subdude]

Gotta agree. You either live in an overpriced home inside the city with high crime rates and pay high taxes for poor city services OR you live out in the burbs and deal with traffic and high gas prices.

I think the 20.9% may be stretching it a bit but then again I don't drive a Hummer.

I thought so too, but there have been other articles that have ranked Houston as having extremely high transportation expense, factoring in gas, insurance and repairs.

[livincinco]

I thought so too, but there have been other articles that have ranked Houston as having extremely high transportation expense, factoring in gas, insurance and repairs.

This is another one of Yahoo's pointless top ten lists. This article measures executive spending patterns, so I don't think that transportation costs factor in much at all. This is about how much it costs to live in the top 2% of the population.

[Rammer]

Articles that are that generalized are generally not worth reading.

[TheNiche]

They said that they were comparing prices from a fixed basket of goods, but that really isn't possible if you're comparing NYC to Houston. For instanc, they didn't seem to take any kind of taxation into account, which for high-earners in NYC is ridiculously high on account of City and State income taxes...which is what pays for things like subsidized mass transit.

And their comment about Miami being expensive in part because of the abundant nightlife and tourism suggests that the basket actually is not fixed at all. I can't imagine that a fixed allocation of, say, 4 hours of nightlife per week in any of these cities would dramatically influence comparative affordability.

Of course, it is also entirely possible that this story has been mis-reported. I tend to think that that is the likely case.

[Texas Wahoo]

Having lived in both Houston and DC, I can say that this report is bogus - at least as it is being reported. Everything in DC is more expensive than Houston.

[livincinco]

They said that they were comparing prices from a fixed basket of goods, but that really isn't possible if you're comparing NYC to Houston. For instanc, they didn't seem to take any kind of taxation into account, which for high-earners in NYC is ridiculously high on account of City and State income taxes...which is what pays for things like subsidized mass transit.

And their comment about Miami being expensive in part because of the abundant nightlife and tourism suggests that the basket actually is not fixed at all. I can't imagine that a fixed allocation of, say, 4 hours of nightlife per week in any of these cities would dramatically influence comparative affordability.

Of course, it is also entirely possible that this story has been mis-reported. I tend to think that that is the likely case.

I checked the Forbes site where this story originated and they don't state their methodology.

I've lost a lot of respect for Forbes recently. They frequently post lists like this without providing any basis for their conclusions and then require you to click through a series of different screens to view the list. It inflates their website click rates and increases their advertising revenue, but it's really poor journalism.

[Fringe]

Of course, there's always the 3rd choice...living in a moderately sized home in the city with moderate crime rates and decent city services, and a tax rate up to 30% lower than the Woodlands. That's the one I chose, and it's worked out well for me.

Dallas?